Gift Rep Sandy

Archive for the ‘Products’ Category

“Theme” niche markets are very popular, and a good way to position yourself in the industry. Often this represents your area of product emphasis, rather than exclusivity. Gift stores are looking for that unique line that no other store carries.  While meeting this preference is difficult to accommodate across a large area, the idea is more feasible if you work in niche markets.  Examples of niche market specializations could be cowboy-themed products, or perhaps themes such as chocolate, huckleberry, “in-state”, gold jewelry, or woodcrafts.

If you do offer a specialization, make sure you communicate that fact, to take advantage from a reputation standpoint. Often, the narrower your niche, the more potential success you will experience – especially if you find a popular consumer market that is not addressed sufficiently in the marketplace.  Trying to be everything to everybody ensures that you will appeal at a high level to almost no one, although that is the more traditional model for reps. Remember that if you take the wide spectrum approach, each mini-niche you offer among your lines, is competing against a rep that might be SPECIALIZING in that niche area.

As you spend time with your lines and your customers, you will find under-represented specialty markets.  These are great opportunities to change and refine what product lines you are selling.  Not all the answers or directions come at once when you start, so allow yourself the option of changing with your themes, as you become more knowledgeable about the opportunities in your territory, and as markets change.

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For now, let’s take a look at most of the significant gift product categories of products you might choose to offer (and you very probably will end up with several). This list is by no means exhaustive, but represents a large sampling of the opportunities available:

•    “General” gifts
•    Souvenirs
•    Gourmet foods
•    Confections
•    Home décor
•    Jewelry
•    Personal care (soap, massage oils, lip balms)
•    Books and/or CDs
•    Housewares
•    Toys/children’s products
•    Cards and stationary
•    Candles
•    Apparel
•    Regionally-made products
•    “Country” theme
•    Hand-crafted or artisan pieces
•    Herbal or natural products
•    Custom or private label
•    Special event (births, deaths, birthdays)
•    Holiday merchandise (Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas)
•    Desk accessories

Nearly all reps try to get as many different types of product lines as they can, and offer a full menu of options for each gift store. Nothing wrong with that! Some reps choose to focus on a single specialization, such as candles, gourmet foods, greeting cards, or in-state products.

Specialization in a single category is sometimes advantageous because neighboring stores in the gift industry, particularly in towns under 50,000 population, do not like to carry the same lines. As soon as you sell one candle line to one store, competing stores in that community will prefer to avoid that line, since part of their competitive advantage is to offer their customers something different. If you only represent one line of candles, you are done selling candles in that town once you make your first sale, and must make your money in other categories. If you specialize in candles, perhaps offering 15 lines, you have a line for every shop in town. PLUS, you become known as the “candle” lady, or “hot sauce guy” or “specialty food rep,” which offers some advantages for word of mouth marketing.

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